Chuck, are you Richard Bach in disguise, by any chance? !
No but we have a lot in common, his story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull was awesome, just awesome.
Have you read any the books that Ernest Gann wrote?
He was my favorite airplane story writer and I was fortunate enough to have gotten to know him personally, the last time we talked together was in his hangar in Friday Harbor where he kept his Wing Derringer and he was showing me the new strike finder he had installed in it, it was not long after that he passed away at home in Friday Harbor.